Death's Bright Angel

by Death's Bright Angel (retail) (epub)

  ‘Lieutenant,’ I said. ‘Everything is in order?’

  ‘As in order as it can be, Sir Matthew. Our men are working double watches – they all want to be back at sea before the end of the campaign, especially if the French fleet comes into the Channel. I wish the same could be said of the dockyard shipwrights and caulkers.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘then perhaps I should have a word with Identifiable?’

  ‘That would be a blessing. He evidently considers me naught but a jumped-up schoolboy, and pretends not to understand a word Mister Urquhart says to him. But here he comes, Sir Matthew.’

  A florid, bewigged, slightly stooped fellow in his mid-forties, grossly overdressed for a mere Master Shipwright of a royal dockyard, was bustling across the ground past the sawpits, from the direction of the officers’ houses. Identifiable Pett, this: to be precise, Christopher Pett, by-named Identifiable because he was one of very few male members of his vast dynasty not to be named Phineas or Peter. The Petts had ruled the royal dockyards on the Thames and Medway for the best part of a century, devising methods of nepotism and corruption that made the Borgias seem like newborn lambs. Like all of his family, Identifiable Pett regarded Master Shipwrights as somewhere superior to archangels in the natural hierarchy of things, debatably on a par with the King. Commissioned captains of the Navy Royal, even if they were knights of the realm and heirs to earldoms, ranked alongside the likes of voles and squirrels.

  There was about to be an argument; an argument of the screaming-until-blue-in-the-face kind. Anticipating this, the heads of more and more Sceptres were appearing from nooks and crannies all over the ship.

  I realised I was grinning broadly. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than the opportunity to berate the Master Shipwright of Woolwich Dockyard in front of my entire ship’s company and his entire workforce.

  Preferably for at least half an hour.

  * * *

  By the standards of the other royal dockyards, Woolwich was tiny, the site constrained by the Kentish cliffs that reared up immediately behind it. Somehow, one double and one single dry dock had been fitted into the space available, along with the usual storehouses, workshops, and so forth. It lacked Chatham’s size and grandeur, Deptford’s convenience for London, and Portsmouth’s impression of endless space on land and water. Worse, all three of those yards had substantial towns immediately adjacent to them, where at least half-respectable rooms in half-decent inns could be found. Not so at Woolwich, which had no inn worthy of the name; travellers invariably stopped overnight at Gravesend or Deptford instead. I had the offer of a bed in the house of the master-attendant of the dockyard, it being an invariable rule of the Navy that the master-shipwright and master-attendant of any yard hated each other beyond reason. So as far as Thomas Clements was concerned, any enemy of Identifiable Pett was a friend of his. But Clements was a flatulent drunk, and a tarpaulin of the meanest sort – barely literate, his notion of genteel conversation was to hold forth on his new scheme for reordering the scuttles on Third Rates. So it was that I found myself in the best room of the Crown and Anchor, a damp, fetid space that would have been considered unsatisfactory even for Ravensden Abbey’s poultry.

  After a few days of discomfort, of nocturnal insects, and of berating Identifiable Pett and his shipwrights, I was doubting the wisdom of my abrupt departure from London. My own men still worked like demons, determined to get the ship back to sea; but on the last morning in August, some two hours after work had commenced in the dockyard, I stood upon the quarterdeck of the Royal Sceptre, looked at the scene around me, and knew it was all in vain. True, the hull was substantially repaired. I had been to sea in ships in infinitely worse condition. Men were repainting the gunports in good cheer, confident that they would soon be snapping open once again to unleash hell upon the Dutch and French. But with the best will in the world, our prospects were grim. Between the Sceptre and the river beyond was the Arms of Sluys, a Dutch prize taken in the previous war. For us to get back to sea, she would have to be taken out of the dock first. Those last few days, I had all but memorised the tide tables for Woolwich Reach; and I had an estimate in my head of the number of tides it would take to get both the Arms of Sluys and ourselves clear of the dock. And God alone knew how many more tides before the gunwharf could get all our cannon back aboard. Two days, perhaps more, to get down to the Buoy of the Nore. And the fleet might well begin to come in to pay off at the end of September; certainly no later than the middle of October. I looked out over the larboard quarter-gallery, toward the river and the distant sea, and knew in my heart that the campaign was over for the Royal Sceptre and her captain.

  I turned, and saw a curious sight down in the ship’s waist: Julian Delacourt, sitting on an empty gun carriage, staring intently at a piece of paper in his hand. He was ever a cheerful, smiling fellow, but his expression seemed infinitely sad. I went down to him.

  ‘Joy of the morning, Lieutenant,’ I said.

  He looked up from the letter, met my eyes, looked down again, then back up once more.

  ‘What is the matter, Mister Delacourt?’ I demanded.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Sir Matthew – that – that is no longer my name.’

  With that, the tears came to his eyes.

  I understood. As the heir to a title myself, I understood all too well. I bowed my head.

  ‘My condolences upon the death of your father, My Lord Carrignavar,’ I said.

  We spent the rest of the day in one after the other of Woolwich’s mean alehouses, attracting not a little attention from the low-bred rabble who frequented them. But Julian, now the fifth Baron Carrignavar, had much to forget: a ruinous castle upon a blasted Irish headland, obstreperous Catholic tenants, decayed, unproductive and mightily encumbered lands, a half-dozen sisters in need of marrying off.

  ‘I shall write to the Duke of York,’ I said. ‘I should imagine there will be no difficulty in you being granted permanent leave.’

  He looked up from his pewter pot of ale.

  ‘Begging pardon, Sir Matthew, but no. With your permission, I’ll remain with the ship – for as long as there’s a one in a thousand chance of us being able to get her back to sea, at any rate. God willing, I’ll stay with the Navy until the war’s end, too. The fields won’t get any better if I’m there, least of all if I get back to them just for the start of winter. Our steward’s an old rogue, but my sisters have his measure. And what I’ve experienced, these last weeks – the Saint James Day fight, our battle with the Jeanne d’Arc – why, those are the memories of a lifetime, and perchance I can garner a few more of them before I settle down to a life of initialling rental ledgers, and other such excitements.’

  ‘I know what you mean, My Lord. All too well.’

  ‘Then let us be warriors of the King for us long as we can be, Sir Matthew, and the devil take whatever lies ahead of us.’

  I raised my tankard.

  ‘Amen to that, Lord Carrignavar. Amen indeed.’

  The following morning, my head somewhat thick from toasting the newly-minted peer, I was down by the side of the dock, inspecting the Sceptre’s rudder.

  ‘Oppressive for the time of day, this weather,’ said a familiar voice behind me.

  I turned.

  ‘Francis,’ I said. ‘Great God, man. I hadn’t expected to see you for many weeks.’

  The Reverend Francis Gale nodded.

  ‘Your mother has been assuaged, and the arch-dissenter Bunyan will continue to grace Bedford Gaol for some time to come. That being the case, it wasn’t difficult to persuade her that it was more important for me to provide spiritual support to her two sons.’

  ‘You’ve seen my brother?’

  ‘I’ve come from Ravensden House this very morning, despite the ungodly hour at which the waterman wanted to set off so as to catch the ebb. The Earl is a little improved, I’m glad to say. His will not to die is perfectly remarkable.’

  ‘Thanks be to God for that.’ Thanks be t
o God that I do not yet suffer the fate of Julian Carrignavar. ‘And my wife?’

  ‘Lady Quinton’s temper is somewhat improved. It seems her father’s fortune has been rescued, at least in part, by the safe arrival of the Dutchmen’s return fleet from the East Indies. He had invested quite significantly in some particularly rich cargoes.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Very nearly treasonable though the thought might have been, I thanked God that my own fleet had failed in one of its principal objectives of the war, the capture of the fabulously rich retoorvloot. And I marvelled once again at the transience of the world of money which my father-in-law inhabited, where everything could be lost and regained, or the reverse, in a matter of days. So different to the wealth of the Quintons, which lay primarily in land that we had held for centuries: land so heavily mortgaged, or otherwise encumbered, or entirely uneconomic, that we might as well have been paupers upon the heath.

  ‘I fear you’ve had a wasted journey, Francis, if you’ve come in expectation of the ship returning to the fleet.’

  ‘Oh, I come with no such expectation, Sir Matthew. I’ve served in the Navy long enough to be a fair judge of how long it’ll take a ship to get to sea.’

  He looked around. Although a few scavelmen were down by the dock gates, and men were busy in the sawpits, there was as yet little activity in the rest of the yard. Most importantly, there was almost no activity on the Arms of Sluys; and Francis knew what that meant as well as I did.

  ‘That being the case, I wondered if we could find some cleaner air. A walk, perhaps.’

  I saw Identifiable Pett emerge from his door in the row of officers’ houses, and consented at once to Francis’ suggestion.

  * * *

  We walked east for about an hour, through quiet lanes flanked by fields. Although we were so close to the dockyard and the river, it could have been a scene from my native Bedfordshire, the landscape interrupted only by the occasional windmill or distant church tower. I talked of the state of the ship, and of the progress of the war. We spoke too of the progress of the wounded men, including Treninnick and Macferran, who had been sent up to Saint Bartholomew’s hospital to expedite their recoveries. Francis talked of my mother’s health, and my brother’s, of the condition of the Ravensden estate, of the latest rumours about the war and the doings of the court. The Duke of York’s new mistress, one Arabella Churchill, was said to be with child. There was a new plot to bring down the Duke’s father-in-law, the Earl of Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor. And so forth – the normal conversation of two men who were not saying what they were thinking.

  At length, we came to a thick wood. Through the trees, we could catch occasional glimpses of the river, snaking its way down through Erith Reach toward the Hope. A big Balticman or Levanter was trying to make headway downstream, struggling against the strong east wind.

  Then, quite suddenly, we were in the midst of ruins. Ancient, thick walls appeared amongst the trees and undergrowth, as though all had grown up together and were part of some strange, primal jungle. High up in one of the walls, it was just possible to make out a Gothic window, its tracery almost overwhelmed by ivy.

  ‘Lesnes Abbey,’ said Francis. ‘An Augustinian foundation. Good men, the Augustinians – most of them, at any rate. Knew some of them in Ireland, in the days when they thought there might be opportunity to refound some of their monasteries there. The days before Cromwell came.’ He turned away, gazing into the distance, and was silent for some time; thoughts of Ireland, and Cromwell’s terror there, still haunted the Reverend Gale. But then he turned back to me. ‘Ravensden could have been like this, had not your ancestor bought it. But of course, it might still become like this, in its turn. All things fade and pass, Sir Matthew. Sic transit gloria mundi.’

  A strange reflection, I thought. But curiosity overtook me, and I began to hack at brambles with my sword, the better to inspect the monastic ruins.

  ‘You always intended us to come here,’ I said.

  ‘The place is known to me. I was at college with the present Vicar of Woolwich. He has invited me to give the sermon in his church this Sunday, the day after tomorrow.’ Francis drew a deep breath. ‘I have been contemplating which text to take, and crave your advice, Sir Matthew. I am torn between One Corinthians Seven, Verse One, and Proverbs Six, Verse Thirty-Two.’

  I stopped my hacking, my sword suddenly unbearably heavy in my hand. Slowly, I turned to face him.

  One Corinthians Seven, Verse One. It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

  Proverbs Six, Verse Thirty-Two. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

  I stared at Francis Gale, but his face was unreadable.

  ‘How?’ I said. But even as I uttered the word, I knew the answer. ‘Musk. It could only be Musk. I was certain he could not know. Very nearly certain.’

  ‘There is no secret concerning the House of Quinton that Phineas Musk does not know, or thinks he knows,’ he said. ‘And Musk, in his own way, is a man of faith, although I am never entirely sure whether the faith in question does not additionally embrace Odin, Zeus, and Baal, as a kind of multiple spiritual insurance. But even if he were not, it’s surprising how many men and women still seek to unburden their greatest secrets onto a priest, even a full century after England dispensed with the sacrament of confession.’

  ‘I – I’m sorry, Francis…’

  I was ashamed beyond all measure, and wanted nothing more than for the brambles to grow up around me, to suck me into themselves, to make me as one with the crumbling walls of Lesnes Abbey.

  Francis raised a hand. ‘I’m not judging you, Matthew. You know me, man – I’m no saint. I’ll wager I’ve committed far more fornication than you ever have and probably ever will, so if either of us is going to burn in eternal hellfire for it, I rather suspect it’ll me being prodded into the fiery pit, a long way ahead of you. And the examples presented to us by the King, the Duke of York, and every man of rank in this kingdom, hardly encourage chastity and abstinence.’ He smiled. ‘Besides, having seen the lady myself only recently, I certainly do not judge a man I envy.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘Why bring you all this way, so that we could talk in complete confidence? Only this. Think upon it well, my friend. Your brother might or might not survive this latest illness of his, but we both know he cannot live more than – what, a few years at best? Your Uncle Tristram is an old man, close to sixty, and he has no children. At any rate, no legitimate children, like our Sovereign Lord. No, the only thing that stands between Ravensden Abbey and the fate of this Lesnes is you, Matthew Quinton. You and your Cornelia’s unborn child, especially if it is a boy. I am the Vicar of Ravensden, and one day soon, you will be its Earl, and then, perhaps, your son after you. Do nothing to imperil all of that. I can forgive you. God can forgive you. But if your wife finds out that are committing adultery with Mistress Behn, we both know she will never forgive you. And what the consequences might be of that, only Our Father knows.’

  My own thoughts, my own nightmares, articulated better than I ever could. The thoughts and nightmares that had plagued me ever since I sinned with Aphra Behn. I looked up at the nearly-lost window, and thought of the long-dead monks who would have trodden the very ground where I stood.

  ‘But Musk? What’s to stop him telling Cornelia? He loves her as the daughter he never had, would do anything to protect her.’

  ‘As I said, Musk knows everything about the House of Quinton. Everything – except, until, very recently, its greatest secret of all.’ But not even Francis knew that – ‘His principal loyalty, beyond his loyalty to himself, is to the rightful Earl of Ravensden. I simply convinced him that it was entirely possible you were already the rightful Earl.’ He saw my look, which must have been incredulous beyond measure. ‘Musk isn’t the only one who has felt the need to confess, these last few weeks. I think all this wild talk of the end of days has prompted much reflection in certain
bosoms.’

  ‘You mean my mother.’

  ‘As you say, Sir Matthew. Your mother felt the need to unburden herself of her – her dealings, one might say – with the late King and Martyr, Charles of blessed memory. Now, shall we return to the dockyard, do you think?’

  I barely remember the walk back, so shattered were my senses. All the while, I was recalling a conversation the previous summer, in a room in Salisbury, whither the entire court had decamped to avoid the plague in London. A conversation between myself, my brother, and the King of England. Charles Quinton and Charles Stuart, who might have been half brothers – for as I had only just learned, my mother was briefly the mistress of King Charles the First, and there was no certainty that the martyred King had not been the real father of the tenth Earl of Ravensden. But if that dark legend was true, my elder brother could not be the Earl. That title belonged to the only undoubtedly legitimate son of James Quinton, ninth Earl, and the Countess Anne, and had rightfully belonged to him since the age of five, when James Quinton fell in battle on Naseby field.

  In other words, to me.

  As we walked back down the hill toward the dockyard, past Woolwich Church where Francis Gale was to deliver his sermon on adultery, I remembered the words I had spoken to King Charles the Second, that day in Salisbury.

  ‘Majesty, there is no certainty that Charles and I did not share the same father. My mother’s opinion is but that – it is not fact. And faces can disappear in families for generations, then suddenly reappear in a newborn. So we also have no certainty that Charles does not resemble some long dead Quinton whose portrait was never made. This being so, it seems to me that Charles is as likely to be the rightful Earl of Ravensden as I am. And this being so, then Earl of Ravensden he should remain.’

  For the past year, I had tried to forget the dark secret of the Quinton family; or at least, to bury it so deeply that there was no prospect at all of it being resurrected. Both war at sea and, more recently, the role of Lord Percival and the charms of Mistress Behn had diverted me from such thoughts. But it was time to cut through all that, and to remember what truly mattered: the honour, and the future, of the House of Quinton.